Vincent Keene wrote:
What he said. Did you just show up and they said sure have it and we'll bill you later?
Pretty much. We covered the insurance issue with private insurance ahead of time they accepted (umbrella liability policies) else they would have charged $375 for a one-day policy. There was nobody there, so we arranged ahead of time to run the track, and we paid afterward for our time on track...just told them when we started and when we finished which was about exactly two hours.
Running it counter-clockwise is more fun to me, but it is by far the more dangerous direction solely due to what exists at the end of the long straight (very little grass and then a tire wall/barrier, no significant distance on either side of the barrier to extend your run-off). This of course would only apply in the case of a mechanical failure, brake fade/failure, etc, but the end result would be profound. Simon noted that eventually the track will be extended past that turn, etc, so it's only temporary for now (although I doubt the place will get funding in this climate to continue expanding).
It's definitely more of a "learning" type track imo, and absolutely unlike any race track I've driven on (Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio, Lime Rock, VIR, Summit Point, etc). All the turns are constant radius, and a number of them go on for what seems like forever.
There is almost no elevation change of significance, and there is little significant camber change for the most part (i.e. nothing like say the Patriot course).
I said "learning" track in the sense that you can work with people really easily on throttle modulation car control on the 200 degree plus turn in the middle for example. There are many sections where you can get a lot of practice/instruction accomplished per lap just because of the length of the continuous radius corners.
Jackie and I co-drove the E90 -- totally stock E90 330i with sport package and PS2 tires. It's been many years since I've been on track with a factory-stock car on street tires, but I was very impressed with it. Sure it was balanced toward understeer, what with the wheel/tire stagger and all, but it also responded very nicely to throttle modulation in those long corners to adjust your line, etc. Great feedback to the driver through the wheel and butt. Using a very conservative braking zone initiation, it was hitting just over 125mph on the straight running counter-clockwise.
All-in-all a very fun afternoon at "our" (taxpayer) facility.
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